Currently, temperature control systems, while found to be generally satisfactory in most situations, are not sufficient for many environments where ambient temperatures are quite variable and difficult to control. For example, when a motor vehicle is speeding along a long stretch of highway on a sunny day, the sun rays enter the vehicle from only one angle while the vehicle continues to travel in the same direction. Occupants of the vehicle on the side of the vehicle where the suns rays are entering tend to be hotter than occupants on the other side of the vehicle, and those on the sun side of the vehicle tend to be hotter on the side of their body adjacent to the window compared to the inside of the vehicle in general. This situation creates uneven temperature profiles throughout the vehicle where some of the occupants are at a comfortable temperature and others are either too hot or too cold. The problem becomes worse when the vehicle changes directions and begins to travel in another direction in which the suns rays enter the vehicle from another direction and further adjustments to the air-conditioning or heating system need to be made.
In many vehicles, a two-setting temperature environment is provided in which a driver and a passenger for example are enabled to set different preferred temperatures for two frontal areas of the vehicle. Some vehicles have settings for more than two persons. For example, some mini-vans have settings for rear passengers as well as for the front passengers. While this may provide some control over general area temperatures of the vehicle, it does not address the above noted sun-ray heating problem and it is only marginally effective even for specific vehicle area heating since there is generally a great deal of spontaneous mixing with the amorphous and continuous air volume within the vehicle.
The temperature control problem is present on hot days when air-conditioning systems are required to cool the air, and also on cold days when heating system control is required to heat the air inside the vehicle. In hot climates especially, however, there is a much greater need for temperature balancing on a personal level than current technology affords. In a four passenger car, each person may have particular requirements for cooling. Personal needs are also constantly changing. As a result, each person in a vehicle may be constantly manipulating the air-conditioner vents to change the direction of the air flow so that cooler air will be directed to each person's “hot spots”, i.e. the areas on each person's body which are, for example, being heated by the incoming rays of the sun. Then, after a while, or when the vehicle changes directions or the sun becomes blocked by a cloud, the previous “hot spots” become too cold for comfort and further manual adjustments are required to the air vents for direction, the temperature settings to adjust air flow temperature and the fan to adjust air flow volume. This activity is an endless cycle and is quite distracting especially to a driver who is usually the person most familiar with the temperature control devices for the vehicle. The “hot spot” problem is also common in many other passenger carriers including busses, trains and airplanes. In airplanes, it is noted that in certain passenger sections of the plane, especially when the plane is cruising at a high altitude, “cold spots” or areas where the area temperature is generally lower than the overall ambient cabin temperature are common. In these situations it would be desirable for the individual passengers to be able to automatically control temperature points in the air immediately adjacent to the passenger.
Another more serious and even life-threatening problem with current temperature control systems occurs when a vehicle is parked or disabled with infants inside the vehicle. When the vehicle heats up internally to a temperature which is life-threatening, there is no way to counter-act the heating effect of a parked vehicle unless someone is present to turn-on the air-conditioning system. The same is true for vehicles which are disabled and exposed to extremely cold temperatures for extended periods of time. In either case, there needs to be a temperature control system which will sense an extreme temperature condition and automatically take corrective action, including automatic temperature control as well as activating one or more alarm systems.
Thus, there is a need for an improved methodology and system for enabling automatic control of temperature points within contiguous air mass environments.